Moving Strongly Forward

Be Free of Food Cravings

I wrote of my family’s journey to freedom from food cravings in Lemon Juice Before Breakfast and Health Gimmicks. It is exciting to know that my body was giving me clear feedback once it began to seriously heal, I could actually hear what it was telling me, and I have been craving free for over a year!

Today I read a great article by Dr. Hyla Cass to back up what I have reported: Eating Disorders: The Nutrient Solution. If you crave any foods that cause you guilt when you indulge, this article may be helpful.

What is so exciting to me is that I now understand even more the power of bone broth. The nutrients that Dr. Cass cites are in broth, with glutamine being particularly noteworthy. Broth contains glutamic acid, which the body converts to glutamine, and magnesium. I knew that bone broth curbed my cravings when I first started eating to heal, but I didn’t know why until now! Check out Amino Acids in Bone Broth – Glutamic Acid. If you want to know more about my take on bone broth, be sure to read these posts too:

Amino Acids in Bone Broth and How They Help You

Broth – Hydroxyproline: Critical for Healthy Skin, Bones, Teeth, Joints and More

Broth – Cysteine and Glutathione: Pure, Potent Healing Power

Amino Acids in Broth – Alanine

Weekly Eye Opener – Kids Don’t Know Their Veggies

It is amazing how little some first graders know about food. Check out this video with Jamie Oliver, the Naked Chef: Tomato Sneak 3-26 - Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.  These kids can’t identify tomatoes or other common veggies. Frightening! If parents do not have the time or location to grow their own food, try purchasing from the local Farmers Market so that kids can see that people actually grow this stuff, they can ask questions, and they can learn about what they are eating.

This generation of children will be the first generation whose lifespan will be shorter than their parents. It is up to you to make sure that your children have vibrant, healthy lives and that they make informed decisions about the food that will bring them excellence or illness.

Visual Detox - GAPS Day 13

There is no way that Ryan will let me take a picture of his belly for the blog, but suffice it to say that he is detoxing something (it started a couple of days ago but I forgot to mention it). He has a bunch of red sores on his stomach. That is the first time he has detoxed this way! Usually his skin irritation shows under his arms in really harsh, painful and angry ways.

I was a bit frustrated that I don’t have that kind of release until he reminded me he is detoxing about 42 vaccines from the military (on top of his childhood vaccines), tobacco and other stimulants that he used in his youth to combat his former ADD brain fog and get his brain working.

With that in mind, I will be glad to keep to my ho-hum healing.

Colds and Detoxification - GAPS Day 12

Our colds came back on Day 9 and it seems that they are finally on the way out on Day 12. Other than a brief runny nose, Colson has remained symptom-free. I tried to find references on detoxification and colds after my friend Shannon said that her nutritionist and her sister’s naturopathic physician both believe that targeted detoxification can express itself as a cold because a cold helps to expel all kinds of toxic junk. While I didn’t find the link between targeted detox and colds stated so clearly, I found many sources that stated that the common cold is the body’s way of detoxing all kinds of junk.

What does that mean for Ryan and me? Who knows?! We could have a common cold just because.

WTF! – Avandia Diabetes Medication Kills Hundreds a Month

I normally only do one eye opener a week, but this report leaked to the New York Times is beyond infuriating: Research ties diabetes drug to heart woes. Our government needs to stop covering for murderers and change its laws to prosecute them. If you know of someone taking Avandia, please send this report to them. Type II Diabetes is so treatable, reversible and preventable just be eating healing foods. It seems that people taking just about any drug are playing roulette. It is time to take your health into your own hands.

Here is the full report:

Research Ties Diabetes Drug to Heart Woes

 

By GARDINER HARRIS

Published: February 19, 2010

Hundreds of people taking Avandia, a controversial diabetes medicine, needlessly suffer heart attacks and heart failure each month, according to confidential government reports that recommend the drug be removed from the market.

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J.B. Reed/Bloomberg News

Avandia was once one of the world's biggest-selling drugs.

The reports, obtained by The New York Times, say that if every diabetic now taking Avandia were instead given a similar pill named Actos, about 500 heart attacks and 300 cases of heart failure would be averted every month because Avandia can hurt the heart. Avandia, intended to treat Type 2 diabetes, is known as rosiglitazone and was linked to 304 deaths during the third quarter of 2009.

“Rosiglitazone should be removed from the market,” one report, by Dr. David Graham and Dr. Kate Gelperin of the Food and Drug Administration, concludes. Both authors recommended that Avandia be withdrawn.

The internal F.D.A. reports are part of a fierce debate within the agency over what to do about Avandia, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline. Some agency officials want the drug withdrawn because they believe there is a safer alternative; others insist that studies of the drug provide contradictory information and that Avandia should continue to be an option for doctors and patients. GlaxoSmithKline said that it had studied Avandia extensively and that “scientific evidence simply does not establish that Avandia increases” the risk of heart attacks.

The battle has been brewing for years but has been brought to a head by disagreement over a new clinical trial and a Senate investigation that concluded that GlaxoSmithKline should have warned patients earlier of the drug’s potential risks.

Avandia was once one of the biggest-selling drugs in the world. Driven in part by a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, sales were $3.2 billion in 2006. But a 2007 study by a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist suggesting that the drug harmed the heart prompted the F.D.A. to issue a warning, and sales plunged. A committee of independent experts found in 2007 that Avandia might increase the risk of heart attack but recommended that it remain on the market, and an F.D.A. oversight board voted 8 to 7 to accept that advice.

Hundreds of thousands still take the medicine, although some top endocrinologists say they have sworn off the drug.

Since 2007, more studies have been done. In a December 2009 internal memorandum, Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the F.D.A.’s drug center, wrote that “there are multiple conflicting opinions” about Avandia within the agency, and she ordered officials to assemble another advisory committee, expected this summer, to reconsider whether the drug should be sold.

“I await the recommendations of the advisory committee,” the agency’s commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, said Friday night. “Meanwhile, I am reviewing the inquiry made by Senators Baucus and Grassley and I am reaching out to ensure that I have a complete understanding and awareness of all of the data and issues involved.”

The bipartisan multiyear Senate investigation — whose results are expected to be released publicly on Monday but which were also obtained by The Times — sharply criticizes GlaxoSmithKline, saying it failed to warn patients years earlier that Avandia was potentially deadly.

“Instead, G.S.K. executives attempted to intimidate independent physicians, focused on strategies to minimize or misrepresent findings that Avandia may increase cardiovascular risk, and sought ways to downplay findings that a competing drug might reduce cardiovascular risk,” concludes the report, which was overseen by Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, and Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican.

Mr. Baucus said of the report, “Patients trust drug companies with their health and their lives, and GlaxoSmithKline abused that trust.”

In response, GlaxoSmithKline said that it disagreed with the Senate investigation’s conclusions. The company said that it could not comment on internal F.D.A. documents but that “the official ruling from F.D.A. is that Avandia remain on the market.”

In the wake of the controversy, agency officials ordered GlaxoSmithKline to undertake a study comparing how many heart attacks, strokes and heart-related deaths occur among patients given either Avandia, Actos or a placebo. Studies suggest that Actos, made by Takeda, lowers blood sugar as well as Avandia but without hurting the heart as much.

But Dr. Graham and Dr. Gelperin, working in the F.D.A.’s office of surveillance and epidemiology, argued in two separate internal reports that the new GlaxoSmithKline study, called TIDE, is “unethical and exploitative” because patients given Avandia face far greater risks than those given Actos, with no promise of any additional benefit. The trial may include patients who have had heart attacks or chest pains even though some foreign drug authorities have warned against Avandia’s use by precisely such patients, the reports note.

“Although the proposed TIDE trial is motivated by a desire for definitive answers regarding the cardiovascular safety of the drug rosiglitazone, the safety of the study itself cannot be assured and is not acceptable,” one of the reports concludes.

These concerns, in internal reports dated October 2008 but not made public until now, were later overruled by other agency officials, and GlaxoSmithKline is currently enrolling patients in the TIDE trial. The trial is not expected to be completed until 2020, although the company is hoping to report some results to the F.D.A. by 2014. The company’s patent on Avandia expires in 2012, and generic versions will probably swallow most remaining profits.

In a letter sent Thursday to Dr. Hamburg, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Mr. Baucus and Mr. Grassley asked “what steps the F.D.A. has taken to protect patients in the TIDE trial” and said the trial’s patients had never been told about the concerns raised by the agency’s own safety officers.

Mr. Grassley said the internal agency battle showed that the agency needed to be restructured to give more power to safety officials like Dr. Graham and Dr. Gelperin over their counterparts who approve medicines and deal more directly with drug makers.

“It doesn’t make any sense to have these experts who study drugs after they have been on the market for several years under the thumb of the officials who approved the drug in the first place and have a natural interest in defending that decision,” Mr. Grassley said. “The Avandia case may be the most alarming example of the problem with this setup.”

The question of when and how to communicate possible drug risks has long bedeviled drug makers and regulators. Hints are common that drugs may cause injuries; thousands of drug injury reports pour into the Food and Drug Administration every week. For example, Avandia ranked first among all prescribed drugs in the number of serious, disabling and fatal problems — including 304 deaths — reported to the agency in the third quarter of 2009, according to an analysis done by the Institute for Safe Medication Practice, a drug safety oversight group.

But companies say that such reports do not offer proof of a problem and that highlighting them can scare patients away from needed treatment, so they often argue that more certainty is needed before alarms are raised. GlaxoSmithKline said a “vast majority” of the recent reports regarding Avandia was related to litigation.

The Senate investigation — the result of years of digging through more than 250,000 internal company documents — concludes that GlaxoSmithKline and by extension the F.D.A. delayed far too long in this process.

In November 2003, for instance, the company completed a study in which diabetics given Avandia had far more heart problems than those given placebos. Two months later, the World Health Organization sent the company an alert linking Avandia to heart ailments. In a June 2004 meeting, the company’s Global Safety Board said a hard look should be taken at all Avandia clinical trials for more signs of heart problems, documents show.

European regulators had earlier ordered GlaxoSmithKline to conduct a study — called the Record trial — to examine Avandia’s heart risks because hints of these problems appeared in the company’s earliest trials.. But the Senate report shows that by at least 2004, company executives were aware that the Record trial was going so poorly that it would never answer the heart question with any kind of certainty.

So company executives gathered dozens of Avandia studies and sifted their combined data. Called a meta-analysis, this combined look found first in 2005 and in an updated look in 2006 that Avandia increased the risks of serious heart problems by nearly a third, the Senate investigation shows. Because two-thirds of diabetics die of heart problems, this was hugely worrying.

In 2005, executives revealed the results of their meta-analysis to the F.D.A., and in 2006 they provided the agency with the underlying data.

Two large company-sponsored trials — called Dream and Adopt — were published near the end of 2006, and each provided more hints that Avandia hurts the heart, the documents show. In a March 2007 meeting of the company’s Diabetes Franchise Cardiology Advisory Board, advisers called the safety worries found in these many studies “disquieting.” Negotiations with agency officials about how and whether to alert the public continued.

Meanwhile, the company continued to market and advertise Avandia aggressively. The Senate inquiry concludes that the company threatened doctors who suggested in public that Avandia might have serious risks.

In 1999, for instance, Dr. John Buse, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina, gave presentations at scientific meetings suggesting that Avandia had heart risks. GlaxoSmithKline executives complained to his supervisor and hinted of legal action against him, according to the Senate inquiry. Dr. Buse eventually signed a document provided by GlaxoSmithKline agreeing not to discuss his worries about Avandia publicly. The report cites a separate episode of intimidation of investigators at the University of Pennsylvania.

GlaxoSmithKline said that it “does not condone any effort to silence” scientific debate, and that it disagrees with allegations that it tried to silence Dr. Buse. Still, it said the situation “could have been handled differently.”

Weekly Eye Opener – Corn Oil, Osteoporosis and What I Did About It

I already knew that corn oil is evil, and I wish I would have learned that sooner than three years ago! It is linked to heart disease, diabetes, cancer and all other kinds of inflammatory disease problems. It was always a part of my cooking arsenal.

My friend Melissa forwarded this blog post to me: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/02/dissolve-away-those-pesky-bones-with.html by Stephan Guyenet. I will be following his blog regularly. Stephan’s post and the associated National Institute of Health study High fat diet-induced animal model of age-associated obesity and osteoporosis help further explain why my teeth were translucent most of my life, which is thanks to the life-sucking “food” that I overconsumed. For what it is worth, sugar was probably the biggest bone destroyer in my diet.

With osteoporosis and “the bones of an 80 year old woman” initially diagnosed at age 30, followed by a diagnosis of osteopenia (the precursor to osteoporosis) when I was tested with better equipment, I am especially interested in preventing bone loss. Imagine being 30, able to bench press 120 pounds, run 10 miles and having body fat of 12%. I wasn’t always that “healthy”, but at that time I was certainly the opposite of the subjects of the study. And I wasn’t healthy in the way that I now define it. My body continues to recover from a lifetime of disease-causing food, and the older I get, the better I feel.

What galls me about this article is that rather than trying to help prevent osteo, the researchers are pointing toward the development of more drugs, which ALWAYS have illness-related side effects. I look forward to the day when someone actually produces a drug with vibrant, life-giving side effects.

I am reversing my osteo with food. Really delicious food. And along with reversing that diagnosis, I have reversed premenopause, regained vitality, regained my memory, greatly decreased my seasonal allergies (as has my son), vanquished the pain in my back from a fracture I sustained 14 years ago, and my husband is free from his ADD. Check out this post to learn more about reversing osteo: Visual Proof That Food Heals.

I had a choice to make. I could accept the osteo diagnosis of doom, or I could forgive my doctor's ignorance and get cooking. I chose to get cooking and get healing.

GAPS Day 8 – Cold is Gone

My head cold must have been detox-related illness. It came crashing in out of nowhere and lasted only 60 hours, a bit longer than the 24 hours or less that I have experienced in the past. Ryan is much better today too (he is a day behind me). I take back what I said about my double orange kefir smoothie.

GAPS Day 6 – Free of Cravings!

Today Ryan and I realized we are free of cravings. It took only six days. That was fast! Last time it was six weeks. Obviously our former GAPS work has not been undone given the speed we overcame the cravings. Other than strengthening our adrenal glands, we don’t have any known health issue we are striving to overcome, so I don’t know how long we will hang out in the GAPS world this time, but it won’t be nine months this time. I enjoy Hope’s Baked Oatmeal Recipe too much for that!

I have also managed to catch a fast and furious head cold, and the double orange kefir smoothie failed me…and I drank it twice! See The One Day Cold! for the smoothie recipe. Note that we no longer use the nuts in our smoothies, and we have honed the smoothie down to just 2 oranges and a banana as far as fruit goes, if we are fighting a cold. It has never failed until now. I wonder if the juicing we are doing in the morning has released some extra toxin that made us more cold-susceptible. Colson, who has not restarted GAPS and is not juicing, hasn’t caught the cold so far. It will be interesting to see if he does.

GAPS Day 3

We have made it through day 3 on our mini-GAPS adventure. Read this post to see why we started again: Ryan and I are Back to GAPS. What is surprising is the amount of food cravings I now have! I could walk into a bakery and crave nothing. No candy bar or ice cream called to me. Yet now that the rice, non-GAPS dried beans, fermented rye bread and raw milk are out of my diet, I want to eat them more than ever. Before I started GAPS, I didn’t crave them at all, probably because at least one of them was in my diet every day. Ryan has the cravings just as bad. Tomorrow is a good day to make some GAPS cookies. See Recipes for some ideas.

Weekly Eye Opener – Sugar Conspiracy

This vintage advertisement is from Huffington Post.

Promoting disease causing foods has been a multi-generational, multi-century effort.

Contrast this advertisement to a recent article by Dr. Oz (I am starting to like him more and more): The Consequence Of Sweetness: There's No Such Thing As 'Just A Little Sugar'

I read this article and wonder if all of the parents, grandparents and friends who regularly feed kids sugar (let alone themselves) would think it is worth it if they read this article. This generation of kids, my son's generation, is the first generation expected to have a shorter lifespan than their parents. But, WTF...I believe that many will keep feeding them sugar (and fake sugar, and fake fat, and other poisons), contributing to this generation's early demise.

Here is the full and very powerful article from Dr. Oz:

I want to introduce you to a brave woman at the hospital where I work. Her name is Laureen. At 34 years old, she was an active nurse -- vibrant, full of life and a volunteer EMT. But now, 10 years later, she spends three days a week tethered to a dialysis machine to rid her blood of impurities that her failed kidneys can no longer process. She has lost parts of both her legs. Her body is slowly turning on itself and each and every day revolves around managing the disease that ravages and scrapes away at her insides: diabetes.

Laureen was on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" last Thursday, courageously sharing her story. Even though it's very personal, Laureen told her story because she doesn't want others to go through what she has gone through. And there are almost 60 million potential diabetics who can watch and benefit from her experience -- though it doesn't have to be this way. One of the most painful things about her situation is that it could have been prevented. That's right -- Laureen's disease trajectory could have been slowed, stopped or even reversed through lifestyle and diet choices.

As a surgeon I have operated on thousands of people whose hearts were destroyed by diabetes - about 25 percent of all the patients I see are diabetic. Most of them could have prevented their fate.

But as the tragedy of this news sinks in, the alarm bells are ringing. Here are the statistics: there are 24 million diabetics in this country and about six million of them don't even know it yet. These are people whose blood sugar is over 125. They will most likely find out when other complications arise such as impaired kidney function, vision problems and, of course, heart disease. Even scarier is that there are 57 million pre-diabetics who are at a crucial fork in the road. Their blood sugar is between 100 and 125 and they stand at a juncture where some simple lifestyle changes and mindful diet choices will lengthen their lives and save them a world of suffering. Nearly half of Hispanic and African American children born this decade are projected to get diabetes. The CDC estimates one third of all Americans will develop diabetes and live 15 years less while losing immeasurable quality of life.

No public health problem compares in scale.

Diabetes will bankrupt our healthcare budget if left unchecked. It costs us $175 billion now to treat this killer and its complications, and that's expected to double in 25 years. Despite the best devised policy plans to manage the economics of healthcare, all solutions will fail unless we address the root causes and engage in widespread awareness and prevention. It starts with education -- you must know what this disease is, who is at risk and how to prevent it.

There are two types of diabetes. Type 1 is also called juvenile diabetes and you are born with it. It can't be reversed but it can be managed. Only 10 percent of diabetics are Type 1.

Type 2 is the culprit in 90 percent of those 24 million cases and 57 million pre diabetics in danger of slipping into full blown disease.

Type 2 takes root when fat stored in the abdomen -- belly fat called omentum -- poisons the pancreas and causes it to stop producing insulin or the insulin in your blood cannot deliver glucose into your cells. Without insulin you cannot process sugar and without glucose your cells have no power supply. Belly fat is a huge problem in America, with 60 percent of our population overweight. Any casual stroll down the street will reveal the prevalence of omentum in our society. The reason for the drastic increase is a perfect storm of poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. Our ancestors usually had little food and had to work very hard to catch or kill what food they could. As a result our bodies are designed to survive scarcity and famine. Now with food available virtually unrestricted our biology is outpaced by this abundance, and overeating creates disease. It happened incredibly fast.

Why is diabetes so destructive? Quite simply in both Type 1 and 2 your body can't metabolize sugar, leaving it to float in your bloodstream. Sugar in your blood is like shards of glass scraping the inner lining of your arteries. The scrapes heal with scar tissue and cause blockages. Smaller blood vessels in your feet close completely and cut off circulation, resulting in amputation as the tissue dies and becomes infected. The coronary arteries scar and cause heart attacks and stroke. These sugar shards damage kidneys so severely they shrivel and die and patents often wind up on dialysis.

Here's the catch: The symptoms are reversible.

Right now the average American eats 140 pounds of sugar per year, which is 40 pounds more than when Oprah and I were born 50 years ago. Sugar is hidden all kinds of places that you least expect -- condiments such as salad dressing and ketchup, peanut butter, and of course juice and soda. To be competitive and make things taste better, food companies have added more and more sugar. The intention wasn't to hurt anyone, it was just to get you to like their food. We have slipped into a cultural acceptance of "a little sugar" - a little in our coffee, a little on our cereal, and it all adds up. The consequence of all that sweetness is obesity and rampant diabetes.

But back to the good news: 90 percent of diabetes is preventable and the symptoms are reversible. Let's go through a few risk factors and action steps:

First, the warning signs are constant thirst, frequency in urination, feeling tired, frequent infections, tingling in the toes, and vision problems. If you have any of these symptoms, see your doctor.

Risk factors are a big belly which blocks insulin, a sedentary lifestyle and a family history. When we refer to a "big belly" we mean one that measures more than half your height. If you are five foot 10 inches, (70 inches) your waist should measure no more than 35 inches at your belly button. Another rule of thumb is a woman of average height should weigh less than 150 pounds for optimum health.

Can we change our biology or our genes? No. But we can nudge it in the right direction. Avoid "white" foods -- those with enriched flours, pasta, obvious sugar and rich starches like potatoes. Avoid high fructose corn syrup, which is found in everything from condiments to bread. You can just read the label to see what's in a food item. Exercise - a lot! Start by walking and set a goal of 30 minutes three times a week of vigorous walking, then move gradually into an exercise program.

Also, know your numbers. Speak with your physician about your risk factors and a screening - just about anyone can get tested for free. This is one of the most important decisions you can make for your health and your children's health. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones. It's not just a little sugar!

Ryan and I are Back to GAPS

Our bread and grain intake have crept up, and along with that Ryan’s food cravings have returned. Apparently he has been battling these cravings for about three months. Fortunately, I haven’t had any cravings, but I have recently been battling some adrenal weakness and constipation, and I am not excelling as quickly as I would like.

We are starting GAPS www.gapsdiet.com again in order to get ourselves back in order. Healing should be pretty quick, as we did the bulk of our healing almost a year ago, our bodies are in better condition than when we first started GAPS, and we are much more knowledgeable and wiser. 

TED Talks – Jamie Oliver, The Naked Chef

TED is a small nonprofit “devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.” TED holds a yearly conference, and amazing people from many different experiences and fields come together each year to share great big ideas, or as TED says: “Ideas Worth Spreading.” Even Matt Harding was a speaker (check Matt out here: Weekly Eye Opener – Smiles). You can learn more about TED speakers here: TED: Ideas worth spreading.

Jamie Oliver, celebrity chef, was an award winning TED speaker in 2010. You can read about his talk here: Bad diet shortens life spans, raises health costs, says Jamie Oliver‎. The talk is not yet available on-line, but you can learn more about Jamie’s efforts here: TED Jamie Oliver.

Jamie states: "My wish is for you to have a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, to inspire families to cook again and to empower people everywhere to fight obesity."

The revolution to retake our health is gaining strength!

Lebanese Lentil Soup

Yesterday I needed a new twist on Lentil Soup. Being Lebanese and missing my Detroit food, I decided to go for it and found a great GAPS-friendly recipe on Allrecipes: Lebanese Lentil Soup. It is as good as any Lentil Soup I have ever had and super quick and easy. Ryan and Colson prefer it without lemon juice, but I love it with. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

6 cups chicken stock

1 pound red lentils

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 large onion, chopped

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

3/4 cup fresh lemon juice

DIRECTIONS

1.    Bring chicken stock and lentils to a boil in a large saucepan over high heat, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes. Make the chicken stock 24 hours before, and see Recipes on this blog for instructions on making it.

2.    Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in garlic and onion, and cook until the onion has softened and turned translucent, about 3 minutes.

3.    Stir onions into the lentils and season with cumin and cayenne. Continue simmering until the lentils are tender, about 10 minutes.

4.    Carefully puree the soup in a standing blender, or with a stick blender until smooth. (I didn’t puree it and it was great!) Stir in cilantro and lemon juice before serving.

Weekly Eye Opener – Smiles

Just can’t go with the grumpy stuff for this weekly eye opener. I will get back to it next week…and there is so much to choose from!

Staying with the positive, my brother reminded me of this video, Where the Hell Is Matt 2008, which has been on my blog since almost the beginning. This is the most awesome, smiley video ever. It is even better now, since the resolution has been improved. Take the 4.5 minutes to watch it…I guarantee you will watch it again and share it. You may also enjoy Matt’s blog. He has been doing some great things, much farther than even his expectations if you read his background: http://www.wherethehellismatt.typepad.com/blog/

Now on to others Smiles. Today is Farmers Market day…a favorite day for me. Most of the farmers are very good and generous people. Today was going to be a bit of a tough trip for me, though, as the company to whom Ryan has contracted for a bit of work during this 9 month layoff, couldn’t pay him on time. That put a serious dent into our food plans.

Off I went, carefully purchasing my foods. I went to my citrus/banana vendor and asked for strawberries. Because I am a regular, he sold me a lot of strawberries for very little money. I told him that there was some confusion about pricing, and he said no, he was happy to do it. I gave him a huge smile, thanked him, and told him he made Colson’s week. Then I told him about our layoff problem and my worries about even purchasing strawberries, as they are a luxury for us this week. His response “Just tell me what you need.”

Next I went to my meat farmer (who also does my veggie CSA in the summer), told her what the other guy did for me, and she told me that his generosity is almost endless. Then, because she knows my family well, she told me to get what I need and pay her when I can. She is that awesome. I refused and bought only what I could afford, but to know that we have those wonderful people to support us if we are ever in severe need is beyond amazing. My family has truly become part of the community at the farmers market. That kind of warmth and caring just can’t be had at the grocery store.

Additional Thoughts on Heavy Metals and Produce

I have received some feedback on Luke’s article: Surprises: Organic v. Non-Organic Produce. Folks are wondering what to do about consumption of heavy metals from produce. My family relies on the delicious foods that we eat to help us shed environmental toxins, including heavy metals. Check out this post: Broth – Cysteine and Glutathione: Pure, Potent Healing Power.

Surprises: Organic v. Non-Organic Produce

Surprises: Organic v. Non-Organic Produce

Luke McMullan, a great person, friend, and owner of Branches Ecological Designs www.branchesnc.com, answered my plea for help in getting to the root of the organic vs. non-organic produce debate. He generously took the time to give me his thoughts. Thank you so much, Luke! You are helping many people!!

Here are Luke’s thoughts:

Laura asked me to talk about plant uptake of heavy metals so that is sort of what I will do. It is generally assumed that organically produced food is relatively non-toxic, while we need to worry about the toxicity impacts of conventional food. Guess what? Worrying is a waste of time, but if you're going to worry you should worry about both. We know that chemical fertilizers contain significant levels of potentially toxic metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, nickel, zinc, and arsenic, which in turn accumulate in the soil and are taken up by plants. What you don't usually hear about are the organically approved natural fertilizers such as composted manure, rock phosphate, greensand, guano, and fish emulsion, which

• contain the same heavy metals
• accumulate in soil
• are taken up by crops.

The difference? This time the chemicals end up in the body of someone who thinks they are eating something healthier.

Several studies in Europe show that levels of heavy metals in organic food are sometimes twice as high as levels found in conventional food, yet there seems to be fairly dramatic variability. The species and variety of plants have a somewhat significant role in determining the potential levels of heavy metals per unit of nutrient; however, there are some other far more important factors to take into account, foremost being the level of heavy metals in the soil.

Several decades ago we knew very little about the toxicity of many of these metals or their potential to end up in our food supply, so agricultural pesticides loaded with lead and arsenic were dumped into the soil. These pesticides along with deposits from other industrial chemicals ended up leaving their heavy metals in the soil and there they remain until some plant picks them up to escort them into the food chain. This can happen either by eating a stick of celery grown in contaminated soil or a hamburger from a cow that ate grass or grain grown in contaminated soil.

Ugh. So what is a consumer supposed to do? When food is from a factory (grocery stores stock mostly factory farmed food) we have no idea what we are getting. But that does not have to be the case for you. A good start is to know the people who grow your food and the land where it is grown. Or better yet get to know the soil where you live and produce a portion of your food sustainably.

More thoughts from Laura

Luke is going to help my family prepare to grow some of our own food. He is a talented organic farmer and landscape designer who focuses on creating beautiful, healthy gardens that require little maintenance and produce wonderful food. Luke offers in-person consults, over-the-phone coaching and a monthly newsletter. You can reach him at: branches.landscapes@gmail.com to sign up for his newsletter or inquire about services.

Can I Write a Book in a Month?

Several workshop participants have asked for my “book,” and other forces are pushing me in that direction as well. Always looking for a challenge, my goal is to write a book based on my blog by March 3.

If you have any thoughts for improvement, encouragement, or testimonials regarding how my blog has helped you, I would so appreciate hearing from you. My email is movingstronglyforward@yahoo.com.

Thank you, everyone!

Never, Ever, Ever Put Pineapple in a Kefir Smoothie!

My morning was going beautifully until the idea hit me that orange + pineapple is quite delicious, and orange is good in a smoothie, so why not orange + pineapple in a smoothie?

Talk about a profoundly WRONG, disturbing, disgusting, NEVER AGAIN food combination.

Amino Acids in Broth – Alanine

Alanine. Now we are getting down to the less notable and flamboyant amino acids. (To learn about other amino acids go to Broth – Cysteine and Glutathione: Pure, Potent Healing Power.) Alanine is a non-essential amino acid, meaning that the body produces it. It helps with the metabolism of sugar. In the right amounts it helps keep blood sugar in check, may help reduce cholesterol and may help with the treatment of hepatitis. Low levels of Alanine are found in people with diabetes and hypoglycemia. High levels are associated with Epstein-Barr virus and chronic fatigue syndrome.

How much Alanine should be in my diet? As with everything, there are concerns when there is too much or too little. So how much? I don’t know. The studies are convoluted and confusing. For my family, who is not struggling with any debilitating disease, teasing through the information isn’t worth the effort.

What I do know is that diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome and other diseases were pretty much unknown until the advent of food processing (sugar, fake sugar, unnatural fats, etc). Real food, as opposed to processed food, goes hand in hand with balance and vibrant health. We just trust the food.

Here is a list of foods containing Alanine:

• Meat
• Seafood,
• Dairy products
• Eggs
• Fish
• Gelatin
• Beans
• Nuts and seeds
• Soy (we don’t eat soy. See The Soy Scam)
• Whey
• Brewer's yeast
• Brown rice bran
• Corn
• Legumes
• Whole grains